Seeking Cloud Forecasts

By Brian P. Watson |
Posted 06-11-2009

For those of you heading to the MIT CIO Symposium on May 20 in Cambridge, Mass., stick around for the 5 p.m. keynote panel on cloud computing. I'll be moderating a discussion with cloud experts from Amazon, Cisco and Microsoft.

The timing for this panel couldn't be better. Recently we've been seeing an uptick in interest in cloud computing from big-company CIOs--many of whom wrote it off as a fad since Nicholas Carr first helped create buzz for the topic with his most recent book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google. A study by McKinsey & Co., released in April, questioned the cloud's long-term savings potential for businesses, which drew skepticism from some in the IT community. And still others, like IT metrics pioneer Howard Rubin, believe the current thinking on cloud computing's scale is just scratching the surface.

Check out www.mitcio.com for all the details about the panel. In the meantime, I'd like to hear your thoughts on cloud computing's pros and cons. Write me at bwatson@cioinsight.com.